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Welcome to Mudthumper.com, the homepage of digital recordings
of Walt
Koken,
5-string banjo-ist and old-time fiddler,Clare
Milliner,The Orpheus Supertones, The Fat City String Band
and Highwoods Stringband.
"Old-Time" could be loosely described as that body
of
music containing fiddle tunes, banjo tunes, ballads, and ensemble
pieces
in various istrumental combinations including the guitar, mandolin,
autoharp,
dulcimer, mouth harp, jaw harp, dobro, piano, and other related
non-electrified
instuments. Typically it has come down to us in its
original
"Old-Time" state, having been preserved since before the industrial age
in the relative isolation of the Appalachian mountains. It differs in
style from modern country music and the more closely related
"bluegrass" music in that people who play old time traditional music
tend to use their musical skills to demonstrate the tunes and songs,
rather than vice-versa.
Although the course
of American history has spread many varieties of this music
westward
across the country, and although there is a strong but somewhat
separate
fiddle tradition from Nova Scotia to New England and across
Canada, as well as French fiddle traditions in both Canada and
Louisiana,
today it is commonly assumed that "Old-Time" refers to the Appalachian-
rooted style, whose epicenter is approximately Bristol,
Tenn.
Walt has played this music for over forty years, and has teamed up with
Clare Milliner, who has annotated fiddle tunes as she learned them over
the past twenty years, and
who now has collected more than 1500 tunes. Walt and Clare are in the process
of producing a book of these manuscripts, along with a database
searchable
by title, source, tuning, key or mode, and collector. They have
applied for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to
produce this volume under the sponsorship of the Brandywine
Friends of
Old Time
Music, a not-for-profit
organization based in Greenville Delaware.
The BFOTM was
responsible
for presenting the mountain Music Convention at Newlin's Grist Mill in
Concordville, PA beginning in the early 70's, which later was moved
down near Rising Sun, MD before its demise. The organization is still
going strong, putting on concerts of Old Time and Bluegrass favorites,
and still presenting its annual Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival over
Labor Day Weekend at the Salem County Fairgrounds in Woodstown NJ.
Unfortunately, Walt and Clare's application has been
rejected twice by
the NEA. This book of transcriptions is a monumental undertaking, and
the beginning of a way to study traditional tunes as they are related
all across the country, but our government which sets up copyright
incentives for a billion dollar commercial music industry, cannot seem
to find a sensible way to promote its own musical heritages.Clare and
Walt are continuing with the project in their "free time", and since
many
people have expressed interest in helping with it, they (Clare and
Walt) are overjoyed to
announce that the BFOTM,
in keeping with its concern of preserving old time music, has set up a
fund for
the purpose of defraying costs of production, printing, and publishing
this work. Since they are a non-profit
corporation, such donations can
be tax-deductible. A donation of $100.00 or more will guarantee a copy
for the donor, when the volume is published. Please go to the BFOTM website
for details.
They also have combined with Pete Peterson and
Kellie Allen to form the
Orpheus Supertones. Check out their
schedule.
Anyone interested in putting a link to an acoustic
old-time music related site on this page should contact Walt
Koken.
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This Page last edited 2/11/2006 © 1998 Mudthumper Music
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